December Community News

Find out what we've been up to throughout December to support residents in the borough, as we aim to make the leisure centres more than just places for people to come to exercise

Felix Project – Fresh Food Giveaway

As part of our ongoing partnership with the Felix Project to utilise our centres to hand out surplus fresh food to the public. Bellingham Leisure & Lifestyle Centre hosted another food giveaway. The event took place on Wednesday 10th December and was attended by over 250 people, 4.5 tonnes of food went in just 1 hour and 15 minutes. A future event has been planned for between 1-3pm on Wednesday 28th January. This will now become a monthly event due to the demand

Work Experience & Work Placements

This month both Glass Mill and Forest Hill Pools have supported learners from Forest Hill School. Both learners performed well, shadowing across reception and the gym as well as supporting with other day to day tasks around the centre. Throughout this term Glass Mill and Wavelengths have been supporting SEN learners, both have had their end of term review this month. Both learners have learnt to travel independently to a place of work, integrate with a workforce and interact with the public. Both had these as goals set for them. The Wavelengths placement is set to end this term, with a new learner from Lewisham College due to join the team in the new year to complete a term with us. Both have found this a positive experience and the college have noticed an improvement in confidence in these individuals

XO Bikes

OX bikes returned this month as part of their monthly visit to Glass Mill, during this visit they offer free bike MOT’s and advice to customers. This once again proved to be popular with our customers as a good proportion of our swim school families arrive by bicycle.

Come and See event

Glass Mill Leisure Centre hosted a Come and See Foodbank and clothing giveaway. This is the third event they have run and the centre and the second one this year. They not only give away long life food such as pasta but also clothing and kid’s toys. 16 families benefitted from this event.

Felix Pop Up food giveaway

In addition to the food giveaway we held earlier this month, we also supported Felix with a pop up Christmas food giveaway. This was as an ad hoc food giveaway to help families in the run up to Christmas, around 180 people attended this giveaway.

If you would like to find out more about our community work, or would like to work with us on a community project feel free to get in touch with one of the centres